IPL Auction 2017: Unsold XI

Pacer:

Ishant Sharma was unsold because of his higher base price

When every Indian player in the IPL auction had a lesser base price, Ishant Sharma put himself in the 2 crore INR base price category and probably paid the price for it. With the exception of Ishant, no other Indian player had a base price in excess of 50 lakhs and the lanky pacer was not picked by any of the teams of the 2017 IPL.

Though this might come as a surprise to the fans, it was Ishant’s fault that he had a higher base price. Without a doubt, he is a quality fast bowler, but the teams were not looking to splash their money on the players as most of them will come back to the auction pool next year.

“Ishant Sharma shouldn’t have kept his base price at Rs 2 crore. Firstly, he doesn’t play for India in T20s and not considered a white ball bowler. He is only playing Test cricket. Ideally, he should have shed his ego and kept his base price in the range of Rs 30 lakh. Varun Aaron gained just because of that even though Ishant probably has more quality,” an IPL team boss who was at the auction said.

Had Ishant given himself a lower base price, he would have been poached by any of the 8 teams ahead of the 2017 edition.

---

IPL 2017 auctions: unsold XI

Irfan Pathan was unlucky to miss out from the 2017 IPL

There were nearly 286 players who were unsold in the 2017 IPL auction. Forming a playing XI comprising them is not an easy job as there are chances that one player had to miss out to maintain the team balance. The case is no different with our unsold XI as few players were overlooked keeping the balance in mind.

The names featuring in the list of unsold players is not their fault as the franchisees might have had other ideas coming into the auction. Every player, who went unsold at the auction is a professional and will look to perform well in the upcoming months and earn themselves a spot in an IPL team ahead of the next season.

The playing XI:

Mohammad Shahzad (overseas)

Virat Singh (under 23)

S Badrinath (c)

Sabbir Rahman (overseas)

Manpreet Juneja

Thisara Perera (overseas)

Irfan Pathan

Abhishek Nayar

Ishant Sharma

Pragyan Ojha

Imran Tahir (overseas)

12^th man: Mitchell Santner